Open letter from a retired FAA controller

If you are eligible for retirement from the FAA I hope you
are counting the hours until January 3, 2008 (for CSRS
employees.) For FERS employees, the magic day is December
31, 2007 according to this article.

But regardless of which date you choose---you should choose
one of them and GET LOST. Get out. Get going. Vamoose.
Scram. Beat it. Make like a hockey player and get the puck
out of here. Make like a tree and leaf.

Go fly a kite. Go jump in the lake. Take a long walk off a
short pier.

The FAA doesn't need you. In fact----they HATE you. They
LOATHE you. They have an aversion to you. Their skin
crawls at the sight of you. They abhor you. You are
repugnant, repulsive and odious in their presence. Your
verminous kind fills them with disgust and horror. You are
the root of their problems.

So get lost.

The world is waiting for you. A well-earned federal
retirement awaits which is more than enough for a family to
live on. If it is not, the problem is not that you are
making too little, my friend; it is that you are spending
too much.

Truth be known, it is your patriotic duty as a
freedom-loving American citizen to retire. Your departure
will help hasten the implosion of the National Airspace
System, and speed up it's recovery. Do you remember when
the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? While many
argue against those military decisions, they were ultimately
made in an attempt to SHORTEN the war, and in order to
potentially save a million lives---at least certainly on the
Allied side of the equation.

A rush to retirement is a similarly patriotic duty. With a
flood-tide of retirees and a requisite burgeoning of
overtime, operational errors and system failure, the
collapse of the Blakey-Sturgell empire will be hurried, and
the reconstruction period can begin.

Or......there is the alternative strategy you can employ.
You can continue to work. Since you are eligible for
retirement, you are working for something like thirty-five
stressed-out CENTS on the dollar. And you will continue to
get stepped on, bitch-slapped, insulted, ignored, mocked,
ridiculed, sexually harassed, intimidated, assaulted and
overworked by the largest collection of chimps this side of
a "Curious George" kiosk.

You will be part of the strategy currently being played out
by NATCA, which, by the way, is the ONLY game in town if you
are going to continue working. If you are eligible to pay
dues and you aren't, then you are part of the problem. It's
just that simple. You don't even have to like the union's
strategy (which I don't.) You still have to contribute to
the greater good. Otherwise, your contribution is nothing
more than a prolonging of the suffering of the workforce.

No, I'm not a traitor. I'm a realist and a change agent and
I speak from the experience of having already taken my own
good advice. Along with almost ten percent of the workforce
I took a stroll last year, and the system began to bulge at
the seams. If everyone who is eligible to retire would do
so, the NAS would completely go kablooie.

If you stay, realistically, here is "Plan A" (and by the
way...at a meeting at SCT this week the NATCA President
informed the gathering that, quote, "There is no Plan B,"
unquote):

1. Attach NATCA's contract language to the Iraqi War
Supplemental, correction, the FAA Reauthorization,
correction, the Blogger Freedom Funding Incrimental,
correction, the Omnibus Spending Bill, correction, the
Renewable Energy Act, correction, the Crickets and Hamsters
Protection Clause, correction, the Toddler Backwash
Reduction Effort, correction, lather, rinse, repeat. And
give me more PAC money.

2. Condemn the FAA in every media forum and venue.

3. Stand against the nomination of the FAA Administrator.

4. Then...re-engage on collaboration and workgroups with
the agency, allowing them to co-opt your participation as a
sign to the world of your partnership and a sign to your
membership of weakness.

5. Blame predecessor.

6. Write "sternly worded letters to the White Star Line,"
like this one.

7. Hold breath. Turn blue. "Get a life."

8. Build bridge. Watch bridge collapse.

9. Try a secret meeting.

10. File more grievances, for all the good the first
300,000 did you.

11. Begin to imitate predecessor.

12. Say five novenas, two "Hail Marys" and a "Lord's
Prayer" for continued health of Jim Oberstar and Jerry Costello.

13. Say twice that many prayers for Pat, Paul, Trish, Jim
and Mitch, the NEB, and anybody else currently working
furiously on your behalf.

You crazy retirement-eligibles need to get moving towards
the door, and NOW. Sometimes, folks, you have to tear it
down before you can build it back better than it was before
(see Japan, Inc. and the trains in Europe for examples.)

Leaving is your patriotic duty. And no less a patriot than
Abraham Lincoln once said, "The dogmas of the quiet past are
inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high
with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our
case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."

He also said, " Any people anywhere being inclined and
having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the
existing government, and force a new one that suits them
better."

You have the power to force a new FAA, one that suits your
progeny better. The tipping point is here, and air traffic
controllers are wearing the ruby slippers. They have been
wearing them all along. The tough part is in realizing that
you are wearing them, and in knowing when to click them.

Well, let me help: Click them now, and rise up, and shake
off, and get lost. And go live. This is one of those rare
moments in time when the most powerful thing you can do to
force change is to do nothing at all. No vectoring, no
clearances, no "business casual," no fifteen minute break,
no counseling session for not saying "niner,", no fake
friendship with your jailers ala "Hogan's Heroes." None of
that. Turn in your paperwork, retire, and do nothing at all
to prolong the suffering of the friends you leave behind.
And watch how quickly change really comes.

Do your family, your friends and yourself a favor. Get lost.